Recommended Reads

Does anyone else have a lot of time to read like me?  If so, maybe check out one of my recent reads and tell me what you think!

The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
The best (and lamest) word to describe this book is: interesting.  Seriously, just so interesting.  I pretty much repeated the entire book to Scott after I read it, and that means it's good.  The book covers personal habits and habits in the workplace (it is a business book, so sorry if you think you don't like that sort of thing) and closes with some truly disturbing habits that I could have done without.  But!  This book comes to mind all the time, and that is great.

Quiet (Susan Cain)
There were things I didn't like about this one, but it did make me think and notice things about myself.  Yeah she may baby us introverts a little; but she has really good points, and I'll be thinking about some of these ideas for a while.  I feel more ok with my personality after reading this, and that's pretty cool.  Recommended for introverts mainly.

Edenbrooke (Julianne Donaldson)
We're delving into fluff with this one, but fluff is awesome, am I right?  The book's very Pride-&-Prejudice-esque sans social commentary.  It's a romance that you can read in two days, maybe even one.  In the words of Rebecca Black, "Fun fun fun fun."  Someone needs to make a movie of this so I can watch it next time I'm sick.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (Jennifer Reese)
I read mostly cooking blogs online (cooking blogs are one of like four things actually worth reading on the internet if you ask me), and this book was perfect for my tastes.  Jennifer talks about her journey learning to make things from scratch, and she's no faker.  She'll tell you when it's a total waste of time and money to do so.  After spending my life on Pinterest, the honesty here is refreshing.  I have no intention of curing my own meats, but I will take some of her other recipes and suggestions.

Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? (Mindy Kahling)
Mindy is pretty darn funny.  This is a memoir about the life of our very own Kelly Kapoor.  My main takeaway was, "Wow I always assumed Mindy Kahling was just like Kelly Kapoor."  Her Irish exit story will never leave my mind, never.  I will also always enjoy that picture of her on the back cover.  Unfortunately I have to say this book had some language, so it can't get a full stamp of approval.

Any reading recommendations for me?

Still Kickin

So the NYR's are goin' great.  Yes, I injured my knee in week two of the exercising, but I think that mess is over and now we can move on!  Still going strong with about 5 hours per week.  I know workout blog posts are just about as exciting as looking at "selfies" on FB, so I will stop talking about that right now.

Meanwhile, the other big NYR this year is emergency preparedness for us. We got an unsolicited kick-start in December when I won a really expensive generator at work, so that began the trek.  Now we're proud owners of a giant freezer in our garage, and we think we might even read the instructions to the generator sometime.  Maybe we aren't all that gung-ho yet, but we're trying.

In other preparedness news, we commandeered some pallets to keep in the garage and store water on.  Now we just have to figure out how to get giant water containers to our house, which is turning out to be the biggest obstacle of all!  I guess if we don't end up figuring that part out, I can use the pallets to build a vacation home.  I think I saw something about how to do that on Pinterest...

Resolved.

It's January, which means I've started feeling bad about eating terrible things like Ritz crackers and Raisin Bran. That is how I'm supposed to feel at this time of year, right?  It is diet and exercise season after all.

Scott and I are in line with everyone else to be healthier this year. We have not defined healthier diets because somehow committing to a diet makes me want to swim, open-mouthed in a pool of chocolate way more than just eating normally.  However, we are planning to get more exercise.  I'm starting up another round of p90x, and Scott will join me on nights when I fail to work out during my lunch breaks.*  For you p90xters out there, I'll tell you that I plan to do the classic program minus any yoga.  90 minutes of push-ups-disguised-as-yoga vinyasas is a little too reminiscent of Dante's inferno, in my opinion. 

So that is our exercise plan and now that a handful of people have read this, there's no turning back!

In other resolution news, Scott and I had this idea to take pictures of our dinner meals each night and document them in a recipe book.  Here's how that went--
Day 1: We forgot and had to take a picture of the lunch leftovers the next day.
Day 2: We forgot again and this goal suddenly morphed into making a recipe book of leftover lunches.
Day 3: We did remember at dinnertime, and I got a great photo of the least exciting meal of the week: a salad.
Day 4-5: We forgot until this very moment...

Hopefully our other goals turn out better than this one did.

*This may result in Scott doing the entire program as well. Heh heh.